“There is nothing
humanitarian NGO’s like better than a good famine and some starving kids,
that’s what brings in the publicity and the cash. Pictures of a dead Gorilla
will do the same for DFGF-I, WWF, the Gorilla Organization, etc. To be honest
the killing of the gorilla will be forgotten in a month and sadly it will not
have changed much here.” [1]

Robert
Poppe

Robert Poppe seemed like a
valuable resource. Robert Muir, a conservationist working for the
Frankfurt Zoological Society in Central Africa,
introduced Rob Poppe, a former British soldier who is training armed rangers in
the Virungas National Park in Congo.

“As I am sure my good friend Rob Muir will acknowledge we
work very closely together especially on proactive measures such as the one we
are involved in at the moment,” Robert Poppe communicated by email from Congo
to the U.S. “I am a field worker and my loyalties lie with the conservation
effort and with the rangers who are on the ground and not with any particular
organization. I completely understand and share your frustrations about the
general conservation community.” [2]

It was Robert Muir who introduced us to the now exiled Mwami
who told us that the Dian Fossey Gorilla Fund International (DFGF-I) project
for “community development” and “wildlife conservation” in the Virungas
landscapes was a sham. Robert Muir had his own beef with the Dian Fossey
Gorilla Fund and other DINGOs in Virunga. He promised to take us to the
newly-discovered ‘cave-dwelling’ gorillas if we returned to Central Africa to
investigate the Mwami story. We trusted Robert Muir when he recommended Rob
Poppe for our logistics and security, and then we trusted Rob Poppe.

Ground truth No. 1: Never trust a white mercenary in Central
Africa.

“I can think of many NGOs out here who do deserve to have their backsides
kicked!” wrote Rob Muir, castigating “conservation” and “humanitarian aid” in
the Virungas-Tayna-Kahuzi-Biega region. “However, stay in touch with Rob
[Poppe], he's someone to keep your eye on, and I hope he will go on to play a
key role in the future of this park.” [3]

We spent a week on the road with Robert Poppe in the
Virungas region of eastern Congo. From here on, we will refer to Rob Poppe as
“the Bodyguard” due to the role he played in providing logistics and security.
(Readers of this series will recall the Bodyguard’s role in covering for the
conservation clique in Central Africa.)

It is tempting to get into the chain of events which landed
us in detention with the Congolese Secret Police, tempting also to deconstruct
the lies, attribute motivations we will never be sure of, and in the process
try to come to terms with the betrayal of our trust. However, to do so will only
deflect from the real story, which is the Tayna Center for Conservation Biology
(TCCB) in the Virungas. Even though the Bodyguard stole our video record and
audio testimonies, our still photos survive as silent witness to the total
exploitation of some of the most vulnerable and suffering people in the world.

The long road to Tayna began in Rwanda.

Hell on Earth

Goma was our first stop after a night of rest in Gisenyi,
Rwanda. The Bodyguard was late, but he escorted us quickly through the border
to Goma. The forgotten human population is more at risk than the wildlife, and
a short visit to the UNICEF tent at the DOCS Hospital in Goma opened a tiny
window into the human tragedy. We attempted to take a discrete photo of a young
woman who had been beaten, and moved behind her frail shoulders to shield her
face. But the wounded woman turned, filling the frame. It was a defiant
gesture. She was determined to send a message.

“Look at me! Look at my baby! Understand my suffering! Do
not ignore what is happening here!”

Not a word was spoken, but her proud gesture conveyed the
pathos of humanity.

The broken baby in the filthy body cast, lying alone nearby
with no mama to cradle her, made us feel sick. The impulse was to reach out and
hold, but how can one then let go?

This is the reality of life and death in DRC.

There is no easy way to say it. Goma is hell. No sooner had
the humanitarian crisis eased after the Rwandan genocide than Nyiragongo
volcano erupted, flooding the city of refugees with lava, mocking life by
sparing the mansions along the shores of Lake Kivu.

First floors of buildings are abandoned to lava rock that
flowed through the structures. Children play in the lava fields at the center
of town. Vendors peddle wares in front of the city garbage dump where the
sickening stench of refuse and sewage makes you gag.

Off the record, a UNESCO diplomat claimed that the ecosystem
in Virunga Park will collapse and there will be no more animals to protect in
less than two years.[4]

Six to ten million people dead, no animals left in Virunga,
and British mercenaries working for Richard Leakey’s organization Wildlife
Direct are sending out press release after press release blaming it all on
rag-tag militias with torn clothing, voodoo patches tied to their arms to make
them invisible, and battered Kalashnikovs draped over their shoulders. See http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?SectionID=2&ItemID=13445

Wildlife Direct arms and trains an “elite ranger force” in
Virunga Park. Video in “Congo 2006: Guns for Hire” on the web (www.vonplanta.net) shows villagers being
tortured by this elite ranger force and literally peeing in their pants.
Meanwhile, we have photo after photo of dead gorillas and slaughtered hippos
that attest to the failure of Wildlife Direct’s anti-poaching programs.

The intense international competition to acquire gorillas,
orangutans, bonobos and chimpanzees for zoos and private collections drives the
funding and competition and proliferation of sanctuaries. Conservation groups
hold the only captive mountain and lowland gorillas—so-called
orphans—acquired by “sting” operations, confiscation and “rescue.” Only
two days in Goma and we found a traumatized Mangabey monkey for sale. Why?
Because poor Congolese know that Mazungus (whites) will buy primates. And
survival is a selfish affair.

Russian or Ukranian MONUC pilots were smuggling gorilla
orphans out of Goma in 2005 and, according to a local expert who once worked
for DFGF-I, Patrick Mehlman knew it. This particular gorilla orphan, the expert
impressed upon us, had learned to use a bar of soap to bathe! DFGF-I took no
action or, if they did, the result was buried within the bureaucracy or behind
the “good neighbor” public relations of the MONUC mission.[5]

Conservation money has not gone to protect these animals. It
is a failed policy. The Virunga National Park—a World Heritage
Site—is no longer home to hippos, elephants, buffaloes and a host of
other species that once formed a delicate ecosystem in which the famed mountain
gorilla also struggles to survive. It is home to well armed and fed
“conservation rangers” and mercenaries and others running around with automatic
weapons—and a poor, starving people persecuted for growing a few acres of
maize to feed their emaciated children.

“There are no white rhinos left in Congo,” said Oscar
Kashala, the Congolese medical scientist from Harvard who ran for president in
the 2006 elections. “We drove from Uganda to Congo through the Virungas. This
is a very celebrated park. Everything was green but there are no lions in
Virunga. No gazelles. People here have eaten everything. We didn’t even hear
any birds singing. We were seeing half naked kids coming out of the bush. For
me—a doctor—to see malnutrition like that is very hard. The kids
all have wounds on their feet, and their bellies are swollen. They are all
sick.” [6]

Our Bodyguard loved the Russian made Kalashnikovs but he
wants the people out of Virunga. He told us that whenever he brings a film crew
or reporter into Virunga, they all have a few drinks and fire off a few rounds
of ammo because it is “fun.”

“Agreed, we are in the
backwater of the world here,” Rob Poppe wrote, in January 2007, in a classic
and remarkable admission of reality in Central Africa. It is remarkable because
the members of the conservation “clique” don’t make such honest admissions. It
is classic because it is based in the mythology of the white
invader-conqueror-explorer who situates the “backwaters” or “middles of
nowhere” in relation to the centers of power in “the middles of somewhere.” Our
personal “somewhere” allows us to define “remote” villages and “backwaters” of
the world with “savage” and “tribal” elements, in sharp contrast to our
so-called “civilization”—the white, urban, industrialized landscapes of
the conquering countries. In the rural areas of Africa the people’s lives and
histories revolve around their intimate communities and connections with
people(s) and land(s) and selves. Congolese people extracted from their
familiar landscapes and deposited in urban landscapes rife with pollution,
violence, noise, industrial decay and technological refuse would find it
totally savage and inhospitable—their “middle of nowhere” is our “middle
of somewhere” and vice versa. Said differently, people live in the Virungas,
the land is not exotic, wild or foreign, it is “home”. Robert Poppe, the
bodyguard, is the quintessential white conqueror. Indeed, we all are.

Recall from Kong: Part Two:
The Mwami’s Tale that our Bodyguard Rob Poppe works as a mercenary training
rangers for the Congolese government and its conservation clique in Central
Africa. Poppe has some as yet unqualified responsibilities for operations in
the gorilla areas of the Maiko, Tayna and Kahuzi-Biega conservation
areas—CARPE landscapes No. 10, 11 and 12. Poppe likes guns, “lots of
lovely, shiny guns” he said. He described himself as “a former intelligence
officer and trained anti-terrorist” expert. [7]

“I am not sure what you want to
do outside of Tayna but if you have not seen the northern piece of the park,”
Rob Poppe wrote us, it “is also interesting, particularly because what the
Gorilla Organization [DFGF-E] puts out in its press releases does not
necessarily reflect the real situation. The drive to make this a tourist
attraction may also spell the end for this fragile and unique group of
Gorillas.”

Out of 29,000 hippos, there are maybe 300 remaining.
Elephants are scarce, but poke around the alleys of Goma and you find elephant
and hippo ivory aplenty. Our Bodyguard showed us a trader and his shop but
would not give the location to Congolese officials of ICCN when we insisted he
do so. He said something about “conducting his own investigation.” Meanwhile,
the forests of chimp habitat are exported to Uganda through criminal networks
aligned with the regime of President Yoweri Museveni and its partners in Congo
and Rwanda.

Villagers in the landscapes where these mercenaries roam are
universally terrified, especially of unfamiliar white people, and rely upon the
Swiss and U.N.-funded Radio Okapi to warn them about conflicts flaring up. Most
villagers are too poor to own an FM radio, and if they do, there is no place to
get batteries, and no electricity anywhere. People survive on what they can
grow and little else. Rebels will trade bush-meat for acceptance, and like it
or not, bush-meat keeps families from starving to death.

“Did you know that 11 out of 13 patrol posts that protect
the gorillas in the Virungas do not have access to clean water?” Poppe wrote.
“You have seen the state of this place. DFGF-I (and the Gorilla Org [DFGF-E])
are corrupt, extremely inefficient, or just very bad at controlling where their
money goes. I suspect all three.” [8]

The Long, Winding, Well Mapped, and Muddy Road to Tayna

Red flags went up again when our Bodyguard and guide stalled
and stalled before hitting the road to Tayna.

Ground truth No. 2: never trust a white mercenary in Central
Africa.

After two aimless days in Goma the Bodyguard showed up late
again, but this time with a Congolese driver and hardy Toyota SUV. We stopped
for supplies in the well-stocked NGO store—plasma televisions and disco
balls for sale—and piled into the Land Rover. Since we were paying all
costs, we figured we’d get a front seat, but the Bodyguard was babying an
expensive GPS tracking toy mounted on the dashboard. He planned to link with
Google Earth on our return and to produce a print-out of the route.

It was a curious activity on the part of our modern-day Carl
Denham—recall the greedy white director wielding the old map in King
Kong—since the European Space Agency (ESA) and
UNESCO have for years charted the region through a project called Build Environment
for Gorilla (BEGo). The ESA web page offers a demo virtual reality fly over of
Virunga National Park.

“An influx of refugees into the area in
recent years,” reads one ESA article, “has led to illegal forest clearing for
agriculture or fuel, as well as illegal poaching for food, reducing the living
space left for the gorillas.” [9]

A workshop was held in 2002 to discuss
a joint ESA and UNESCO scheme to keep watch on endangered gorilla habitats from
space. The participants included representatives from the usual DINGOs and
BINGOs and the meeting was held, not in Africa, but in the resort town of
Frascati, near Rome.[10]

The Virunga Park has not only been
mapped and remapped by satellite, there are countless studies done on all
manner of biodiversity, including at least one major study on the rate of decay
of dung—primate excrement—which yields the startling fact that
“dung decays slower at higher altitudes than at lower altitudes.”

Really. We could have told you that.
You can also burn dung, and cook with it. Starving people in India, Sudan, and
Kenya do it all the time.

This particular study partially
authored by Katie Fawcett of the DFGF-I, says it “builds on work begun at
Mgahinga Park,” and includes the imprimaturs of WCS, DFGF-I, ICCN,
ORTPN, UWA, and IGCP.[11]
A graph in the 97 page document depicts “mean time to fully decay of bushbuck,
buffalo and elephant dung at different altitudes.”

Meanwhile, we soon discovered that the girls dormitory at
the TCCB “university” at Tayna has unconnected toilets and latrines that
partially overflow into the showers. Perhaps DFGF-I could fund a dung study up
at the Tanya University? The Road to Tayna could be a book. We will offer only
a few impressions here: most important is what we found—or did not find—at
the end of the road.

The Dung Hits the Fan

Our route climbed the spine of the Great African Rift
Valley, dotted by ranger stations here and there, all within the vast Virungas
CARPE landscape. We passed villages and huts and unimaginable poverty, but the
rangers and their families are squatting in former European resorts and hunting
lodges, now abandoned and crumbling. Living conditions are primitive, even for
the rangers, but they have food and clean water, their children are well
dressed, and food and medical supplies are plentiful.

First impressions count the most, and our first stop was
Kibati. Touted as a tourist stop, Kibati had a maggot-infested latrine
surrounded with burlap sacks for privacy, and a rooster—it was no weather
vane— perched on top. Goats were everywhere. The entrance sign is riddled
with bullet holes. Another sign describes Kibati as the entrance point for
excursions to the Nyiragongo volcano—an experience sponsored by ICCN and
DFGF-E, whose logos are stamped on the sign for brand recognition.

Some 30 to 40 kilometers north of Goma we stopped at
Rumangabo Park Headquarters. Rumangabo presented another stunning landscape,
and another sorry hovel of despoiled and bullet-holed buildings with smashed
windows. Ranger families greeted us eagerly. Children rushed out
enthusiastically to see the novel white people, especially the blond Muzungu
woman.Straddling the cistern, the
expected DINGO placard announces the ICCN and DFGF-I presence. The children
fell all over themselves for a photo, and they pointed laughingly at the crude
drawing of a bare-chested villager hauling water from the well, and a DFGF-I
logo expertly painted in the lower right corner of the sign.

Rumangabo has long been the epicenter of many a Congolese,
Ugandan and Rwandan military operation. Villagers have suffered unspeakable
brutalities, again and again and again. Dian Fossey was briefly imprisoned
there, and she always maintained in private interviews that she was raped and
brutalized by Congolese militia.[12]
One might say that her legacy and name is suffering the same fate today,
especially at the Tayna Gorilla Reserve. A huge microwave communications tower
loomed over the Rumangabo facility: we were told it was for park
radios—or perhaps it serves other communications needs on the volatile
border with Rwanda and Uganda.

We pick up an armed ICCN guard. Our Bodyguard called him
“Guard”—another nameless Congolese slave serving his great white
master—and “Guard” responded only to gestures and eye contact. We keep
him well watered: our Bodyguard was fawning over his GPS toys while “Guard” was
getting dehydrated.

The World Wildlife Fund panda logo greeted us on the sign at
the entrance to the Kabaraza post. We also encountered a MONUC convoy,
commandeered by a cranky commander who declined the photo op—because, he
said, “I’m not doing anything”—but permitted photos of the U.N. trucks.
We snuck his photo anyway, after he finished a surprisingly friendly
conversation with our Bodyguard.

Stories fronted by the Frankfort Zoological Society, the
London Zoological Society and others about the well-trained “disciplined”
rangers of the advance force in the Virungas are believable enough—until
you meet the rangers. Soldiers in plastic, open-toed shoes who readily hand
their automatic weapons over to a middle-aged female Muzungu civilian to play
with are no soldiers at all. They are desperate men fighting for a meal ticket
and shelter for their families, so that Western interests can have a private
militia in the jungle.

Rangers at Kabaraza were eager to show us an elephant skull
they found in the last three months. Our Bodyguard was busy with the cranky
U.N. commander when the conversation began, but nervously watched as we poked
at the elephant skull. He hustled over, interrogated everyone, and told us we
had it all wrong, that the elephant skull was “much older.” No forensic expert
was available, but dried skin and hair and sinewy tissues were still present.
Why was our Bodyguard mercenary so concerned about our impressions of an
elephant skull?

Relying on a map to Tayna supplied by none other than
DFGF-I’s conservation “hero,” Pierre Kakule, whom we met at the DFGF-I compound
the day before, our Bodyguard directed the Congolese driver to leave the main
road just south of Lubero. We questioned this decision—we had our own
maps—but the Bodyguard insisted he was correct. Hours later it was dark,
and getting darker, and the truck was mired in mud, and our Bodyguard wanted to
go home.

We suggested camping for a fresh start at dawn. A truck
heading in the opposite direction was also stuck on the narrow road, and the
driver had wisely abandoned it for the night. The Bodyguard decided it was “too
dangerous,” so we wasted more precious hours backtracking to Lubero.

The next two days we tried again and again to go down the
same road. The locals told us again and again it was the wrong road, but the
Bodyguard insisted it was correct and—with his sophisticated mapping
equipment and gender authority—he bullied everyone. We could not get out
and walk alone in the middle of a war zone.

Finally fed up with the wasted time and money, we told the Bodyguard in no
uncertain terms that we were stopping at the nearest MONUC compound in Lubero
and having the PIO (press information officer) draw us a map.

Tayna at Last

After three days, and with MONUC’s help, we steered our
Bodyguard and erstwhile GPS expert down the correct road. Actually, it was the
best day yet. We averaged 34 kilometers (21 miles) an hour—instead of 9
meters (30 feet) per hour. In retrospect, it is clear that our “expert”
Bodyguard, tracker and trainer-of-armed-rangers, was intentionally impeding our
mission—either that or Rob Poppe is severely directionally challenged.

Ground truth No. 3: never trust a white mercenary in Central
Africa.

The situation at the Tayna Center for Conservation
Biology—the “American University” and crown jewel of the Conservation
International and DFGF-I efforts—confirmed the Mwami’s story, and
more.Here was the result of
millions and millions of dollars of American taxpayers’ money: the pot of dung
at the end of the rainbow!

Most puzzling is that the “university” is located deep in
the countryside west of Lubero—more than a day’s walk from the town.
However, mineral mines are clearly marked on maps in the vicinity. Our source
from nearby Bukonde village claims that gold, cassiterite and coltan are being
mined inside Tayna, and that Pierre Kakule has hatched a plan to have graduating
“geology” students at TCCB work for him in the forest.

The Congolese teachers told us they have been working
without pay for the last five months. One teacher said that his children, who
live in another village, are unable to go to school, and that his family is
suffering without income. He stays in hope that the school will get funding
again. He said it gets very cold at night, but that he is “getting used to it.”

Photos tell the story of his living quarters. It is no
wonder he is cold at night: there is no ceiling or decking and the wind enters
from both ends of the building.

The dean lives in a green-tarped tent. He stays, he says,
because he “has no choice.”

This is the mantra of the people of Central Africa. Workers
on plantations, miners, starving families, villagers at Western outposts beset
by “conservation” scandals—there is often no choice but to stay exactly
where they are and suffer the consequences. Good land is scarce, controlled by
corporations, logging, plantations, mining, and big “conservation” land grabs
exclusive to a select few, at the expense of the communal many. Those who try
to flee end up in a hell worse than the hell they fled from. Extortion
continues at roadblocks or river blocks, young girls are raped, and boys forcibly
conscripted. Hundreds of thousands of people have died on the road, in the
forests, running for their lives and going nowhere as fast as they can. Their
names are not known, and will never be known, to the bean counters or
participatory mappers, and Bodyguards. And always these days there is some
military element spreading terror and trauma. We are talking about economic and
political slavery of millions of people, because the man or woman who “has no
choice” in this postmodern world is a slave.

Conservation International says that the “Tayna University (TCCB) was
completed in 2004 and built for about $500,000 by hundreds of local villagers
working under the constant threat of theft and violence by militias.” [13]
It mentions “visiting professors” and “specialized courses,” but we found
something else. The green tent was just the beginning.

Buildings are unfinished. Piles of bricks made by the
“orphans” and villagers are overgrown with weeds. The villagers signed over
their land with high hopes and a certain innocent but resigned trust. They
expected the promised infrastructure, a real community center. What we saw at
Tayna are the ruins of their hope. Piles of stones that villagers brought to
the site are covered in mud that washes down rainy slopes. Decay is everywhere,
but that suggests that something has been “completed.”

In stark contrast to the scandal we witnessed at Tayna and
Walikale and Kahuzi-Biega are Pierre Kakule’s rising mansions on the shores of
Lake Kivu.

It is clear to us where the “conservation”
money—American taxpayer’s money—has gone.

Things fall apart? Classrooms are pitiful excuses for
centers of learning—there are four semi-completed rooms, but each is open
at the ceiling to the next, and noise from adjoining classrooms is overwhelming.
One classroom is named for DFGF-I CEO Clare Richardson. When we asked why a
classroom is not named for Dian Fossey, there were confused shrugs all around.

Western patronage and charity have achieved so low a level
of ethics and morality these days that it occurred to us that this “school” may
be considered finished, that it may yet be held up as another example of
Western philanthropy and generosity, another glossy example of the fortunate,
even lucky, natives getting something
for nothing from the goodness of our hearts.

The place is filthy, the concrete crumbling, the students
still hopeful. We cannot show their faces, even though we have photos of them,
because they would be in jeopardy. The students asked what we will do to help
them. We promised them that we would take the videotape back to our government
representatives and make sure that the money their “university” was supposed to
receive will arrive. They applauded.

Of course, the videotapes were later stolen and erased by
our mercenary Bodyguard. And the U.S. Government, USAID, and the conservation
clique are unaccountable. Unwittingly, in our own hopeful foolishness we became
yet another team of white people who came, got what we wanted, made promises we
couldn’t keep, and left.

We asked to visit the girl’s dormitory. The halls reeked
from poorly constructed latrines, the corridor was black as night under the
midday equatorial sun, the roof leaked and the young women who live there pay
$110 a year—a life’s wages for some people in Congo—for the
“privilege” of living in a gorilla scam slum.

A life’s wages for some people in Congo.

The community health clinic, sponsored by the Jane Goodall
Institute and Engender Health—the big firm that has subcontracted JGI
here—is a house of horrors. It is all the local nurse has to work with.
It is the same story all over Congo—a clinic is a place where many people
come only to die. The clinic staff had not been paid in five months. Drug
cabinets contained vials of Depo Provera with the Pfizer logo. (See KONG:
Primate Worship? Or Depo Privations? COA News, May 9, 2007 <www.coanews.org/tiki-read_article.php?articleId=1867>.

In the language of neocolonial gender studies, this is
called “dumping,” where pharmaceuticals or foods that are outdated or illegal
in the West are donated to some desperate population, through some do-gooder
DINGO, while monster corporations receive [1] kudos for corporate social responsibility
[2] good press [3] major tax write-offs and [4] massive savings by eliminating
the huge expense of destroying toxic biological, chemical or medical waste.

In 2005, the firm Engender Health, JGI’s partner, settled a
claim in U.S. federal court which was predicated on allegations that promised
services were not performed and that unused funds were expropriated for other
projects. Under federal law, at the conclusion of the applicable funding
period, Engender Health must return any unused funds to USAID. But Engender
Health used leftover USAID funds for their own profit. [14]

What is truly remarkable is that one year after Engender
Health was fined over three million dollars for creative bookkeeping and
misappropriation of funds—and through a combination of USAID field
support and Global Leadership Priority funding—Jane Goodall Institute is
sub-contracting under Engender Health for family planning initiatives in rural
Congo.[15]
Evidently, JGI and USAID see too many human primates in the under populated
gorilla landscape.

The staff nurse at the TCCB clinic was told, and believes,
that the local population must be reduced for fear of over-population because
it is unhealthy for a woman to have babies one after the other. But with the
average life span of men and women being 38 to 44 years old—and the
low-population density noted in the report by Weidemann Associates—the
population is certainly sustainable.

We saw no official NGO presence anywhere in the backcountry.
They were all at the bars and villas in Goma. They are mapping, plotting,
conferencing, emailing, purchasing laptop computers and high-tech GPS
equipment, promoting themselves in public relations, hiring lawyers, writing
research papers about primate dung, driving around town, flying around the
world and building private mansions—a.k.a. feeding at the trough.

We interviewed a highly educated Congolese professional who was
hired to work for DFGF-I at Tanya. He quit due to the low pay and poor
conditions. He had worked for DFGF-I in differing capacities for many years,
until Patrick Mehlman and Pierre Kakule showed up, and then things went
increasingly bad as they exploited him more and more for less and less
compensation or benefit.

He was in charge of vegetable and animal husbandry projects
at Tayna—how to raise chickens, pigs, cattle—and vegetables. “There
was no money for the project, no animals, no farms, nothing to work with. There
were a few chickens, five cows—it was a joke. It was not serious for me.
The climate was bad for me and caused problems with my health. My wife was
pregnant. Working conditions were terrible. I would have worked as a consultant
but they said no. They have a lot of money, but nothing for an experienced
Congolese professional who is serious.”

The man was very poor when we met him, living quietly but
with dignity and self-respect, esteemed by his neighbors and colleagues in
Goma. Another sad story we have heard again and again.

“Even with higher university degrees,” he said, “you can’t
get a good job with these organizations. They [whites] go to all these
conferences in Europe, U.S. and Nairobi, but I could never go anywhere. It’s
evident that DFGF-I doesn’t want to work with people like me—people who know what needs to be done,
understand the landscape and people, and can make a serious difference.”

Pigs for Profit indeed. And piles of primate dung.

“In addition to construction and support jobs,” reported Conservation
International, “the regional population now has access to doctors, nurses, and
medical care that includes the services of a 28-bed health center, complete
with an operating theater.” [16]

This is a complete and utter deception.

The “operating theater” is an empty room with a single
gynecological exam table, and even this is broken.

“The conservation clique took advantage of the situation at
Tayna,” our Congolese conservation insider, “Ilungwa,” told us in Goma, “in
which nobody could come and examine what they are doing in Congo for five or
six years. A lot of the money disappears in Nairobi—you won’t get money
for conservation anywhere if you are not known in the fancy offices in
Nairobi—and then fifteen to eighteen people each take $60,000 out even
before the money hits the ground in Congo. And if the conservation clique is
doing this for each and every project—consider it!—total corruption
and lack of transparency. This is a disaster. And it is the same culture of
institutional predation with the humanitarian agencies. They all band together
as predators following their prey. The Congo gets nothing but abuse and then we
are blamed for our own suffering.”

Oscar Kashala confirmed this. “I was talking to a tribal
chief, and he said SIFORCO [German Danzer Logging Corporation] and CARE
International are working in his area, but the people are not benefiting from
these organizations. There is no social responsibility by these companies, they
don’t care. They just want profits. There is also a matter of ethics: you don’t
just come here and mistreat the people and run off with the money!” [17]

Tell that to the more than 600 “orphans” at
Tayna—another tragic story.

Pierre Kakule told us, in one of the taped interviews stolen
by the Bodyguard Robert Poppe, that “the orphans go home at night.” We were
perplexed. “If they are orphans, how can they go home?”

They go home to relatives Kakule replied. So they are not
orphans: this is a way of life in Africa: children with one or no parents
routinely resettle with their extended families; the truly orphaned children
have no one.

The Tayna “university” students have twenty mis-matched
computers, it’s true, but only seven can connect to the Internet, and only when
there is power, and many are old. There is never enough fuel for the generator,
and so there is no consistent use or access. The small library has outdated
books, one on North American timber wolves, which can’t be very useful in the
equatorial forest, unless you are studying predators and pack
behavior—applicable to hyenas. The sorriest truth is that children and
adults treasure such books, because there is never anything else but the bible,
and pictures of wolves in American books nourish dreams and hopes of America.

Both the Mwami and teachers indicated that the lumber for
the TCCB buildings was cut from the trees of the Tayna Gorilla Reserve, but we
could not verify this. Our photos show extensive logging on both roads that
lead to the reserve and we believe these roads lie within reserve boundaries,
but our Bodyguard—who carefully mapped our route down the wrong road and
synced it with Google Earth—hoarded his GPS data.

Still to be found were the orphans of Mbingi, the celebrated
beneficiaries of DFGF-I and CI and USAID’s philanthropic largesse. The next day
we insisted on stopping at Mbingi, but before we did we made sure that several
witnesses heard the itinerary, because we were beginning to fear our Bodyguard.
Rob Poppe was increasingly alarmed by the testimonies gathered on video, by the
forthright questions asked—by the truth. He stated “if anyone sees this
footage, it will damage conservation in the Virungas.”

What we found at Mbingi personified the true heart of
darkness—the devil’s workhouse. The kids in Oliver Twist had it good. At
least they could ask for more. There were twenty plus stunted, malnourished
children, hair falling out in patches, garbed in dirty green “uniforms” that
could pass for prison garb, with the initials for the Tayna Gorilla
Reserve—RGT—emblazoned over the right breast pocket. They greeted
the Mazungus. The stolen videotape is a powerful testimony to the afflicted
children and deplorable conditions.

It was a Charles Dickens’ scenario.

The cupboards were bare but for a few measly sacks of
half-empty meal for porridge. We asked over and over who is supposed to provide
food and got the same answer from different people—“Kakule.”

“Feeding time”—it cannot be called a
meal—occurred next. Each child was given a red plastic cup the size of a
medium coffee mug and marched up to a dirty green plastic pail that held a pasty
gruel. Each cup was filled three-quarters full and the children returned to
dirty benches and sat with arms crossed, waiting for the last child to be
served. A signal was given, and if we had the stolen truth, you would hear
slurping reminiscent of a barn full of cattle. Not another sound. “Slurp,
Slurp, Slurp.”

Dickensian orphans in
a Leopoldian nightmare.

The Road (Back) to Hell

We turned back toward Goma, against the wish of the
Bodyguard, who was anxious to play with his GPS toys in the Park’s northern
expanse. We had seen enough, and the Bodyguard was getting increasingly moody.
(Leaving was a wise decision: the promised roads not provided had taken their
toll on our vehicle’s transmission, and the clutch went out on the outskirts of
Goma.)

Some seventeen kilometers to the west of our main route was
the village of the latest hippo slaughter. The FARDC—Congolese Armed
Forces—guard at the gate said there were no problems—meaning the
dreaded and savage Mai Mai of course—on the route to the village. We took
the short detour. Things fell apart about two kilometers from our goal. Our
ICCN ranger “Guard” shouted for the driver to stop. Three men were running
toward us, and “Guard” jumped out and stepped in front of our vehicle, rifle
ready.

What we saw were three terrified and skinny men carrying
hoes, not guns. The ever-thirsty “Guard” stood alert and questioned the men.
They were shouting and obviously panicked. There were distant rifle shots. The
men said the Mai Mai were in a gun battle in the fishing village, probably with
FARDC forces. The Bodyguard ordered the driver to leave and the driver sped
off, nearly running down the panicked farmers. It was an apt metaphor for the
abandoned people of Congo.

The last thing we saw were their faces, pleading, imploring
us to take them away—thewretched, astonished eyes ablaze with betrayal and fear.

The Road to Tayna and back was a long, merciless haul. On
arrival in Goma Bodyguard Rob Poppe stole all the video equipment and videos
and some notes. Detention by Congolese intelligence and immigration officials—after
Robert Poppe’s lies about espionage—marked the end of the road.